Analysis Of Zoe In The Film 'Serenity'

I choose Zoe, from the movie “Serenity” to expand on my knowledge on Frye’s female archetypal imagery. Frye’s imagery consists in differentiating women in fiction into two main categories, maternal and marital; maternal referring to a woman that is either a mother or married, while marital refers to a single woman with the eligibility marriage. These two categories are subjugated to three subcategories, ideal (heavenly), intermediate (earth) and demonic (hellish) women.

Based on the film alone, I determined that Zoe is the maternal ideal type of character, since she is married to Washburne and has a wide variety of heavenly virtues, including kindness, diligence, and temperance. One of the first virtues that Zoe portrays, is her vast sense of benevolence towards others, not just

From beginning to end, she is the one to take action, show conviction, and the only one that without a doubt listens to her captain's commands. Throughout the story, she is one of the most useful and reliable characters, she can both protect herself and others and take initiative in times of crisis. This makes her the most capable and composed women out of all the female character’s in this film, even at times in where she shouldn’t be -for instance, her husband's death- she demonstrates excellent “work ethics” and continues with the mission despite her terrible loss. This example brings up another virtue portrayed by Zoe, her temperance. When someone that is dear to you, anyone’s natural response would be to become distressed, melancholic and become unable to think rationally, but in Zoe’s case she is capable of judging the situation accordingly and acts appropriately regarding it. That meaning, that instead of staying with her husband after his unexpected death, she quickly realizes the importance of the crew’s mission and continues her job, leaving her own interests aside to aid